Foreword
In July 2009, the Delhi High Court passed an order
decriminalizing private consensual sex between
adults. This was a momentous victory for human
rights activists in India, who had been fighting for
almost a decade against an antiquated piece of
legislation which law enforcement officers used
primarily to target men who have sex with men
(MSM) and transgender people. As the lawyer who
initiated and appeared on behalf of the Petitioners,
Naz Foundation, I believe that criminalization of
perceived ‘unnatural’ sexual behavior is an affront to
human dignity, privacy and equality and violates the
right to health. Criminalization dissuades individuals
from seeking health services, thus derailing HIV
prevention efforts and affecting the right to health.
The violence and oppression recounted by the
chilling testimonies of transgender women defenders
in the REDLACTRANS and the Alliance’s powerful
report serves as a reminder of similar, if not harder,
struggles faced by transgender women rights
defenders in Latin America.
The report highlights how transphobia has
permeated different structures of society, family
and institutions, robbing transgenders of their
human dignity. It is a valiant effort to document
the appalling number of murders and extra-judicial
killings of transgender women human rights
defenders in Latin America, whose deaths remain
uninvestigated by government agencies. The
systemic failure of the rule of law and the growing
culture of impunity that results from it indirectly
legitimize horrific acts of abuse and violence against
transgender women. Failure to protect women
against violence or to prosecute perpetrators is
also a violation of the State’s obligation to protect
the right to health of women as interpreted by
General Comment No. 14 under Article 12 of the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The report also details the

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vulnerabilities of transgender women generally, as
well as the specific vulnerabilities of transgender
women activists who engage in sex work whose
visibility and desire to defend their own human rights
in the absence of State protection of their rights
puts them at greater risk of violence. Key findings in
the report reveal a shocking trend of systemic and
hateful targeting of a vulnerable population on the
basis of their very identity.
In my capacity as the UN Special Rapporteur on the
right of everyone to the highest attainable standard
of physical and mental health, I have written a
report that examines the impact of criminalization
of same-sex conduct, sexual orientation and gender
identity on the enjoyment of the right to health (A/
HRC/14/20). In that report I highlighted that the right
to health approach requires States to repeal laws
that discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation
and gender identity. The present report mentions
a list of discriminatory laws in the Latin America
region, which do not specifically refer to gender
identity but are still wide enough to include gender
identity within their ambit. The report also calls for
the repeal of such laws that could be ‘interpreted as
criminalizing sex work.’

I congratulate REDLACTRANS, the International HIV/
AIDS Alliance and all those who have partnered
with them to make this important, well-researched
contribution that highlights the egregious violations
of the human rights of transgender women human
right defenders in Latin America. I hope that States
and other actors adopt the practical and sectorfocused list of recommendations in policy and
practice. It is indeed a commendable feat and I hope
that, like the victory we achieved after a decade of
battle for the rights of sexual minorities in the Indian
context, the report will spur States in Latin America
to respect, protect and fulfill their obligations
towards their transgender community, especially
their transgender women human rights defenders.

I hope that this report will be widely read and more
people will be inspired work on these issues so that
the dignity of transgender people is restored.

Anand Grover
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right of
everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable
standard of physical and mental health

Pertinently, the present report makes a holistic
and comprehensive set of recommendations for
stakeholders at the international, regional and
national levels. These include calls for arrests
and trials of those responsible for murders, hate
crimes and other human rights violations; providing
legal recognition of gender identity; and extending
comprehensive health services to the transgender
community. These recommendations are very useful
to policy-makers, specialized government agencies,
human rights and developmental organisations,
and civil society organisations in Latin America and
across the world working on these issues.